Season ends for Saints in penalty kicks

MONTVILLE — The first penalty kick off the right foot of St. Bernard senior Allie Regan was almost perfect.

The Saints forward sent it low and to the right of Old Saybrook keeper Mia Neas.

“I thought that was in,” Regan said.

She wasn’t the only one.

“It was going to hit off the post and go in,” said Old Saybrook coach Larry Bright.

Neas dove to her right and succeeded not only in knocking the ball down, but even caught it in the process.

“I was devastated,” Regan said.“It’s very intimidating to the other team when that kind of thing happens,” Bright said.

After playing scoreless soccer for 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime, the only way to determine the outcome of the Class S semifinal Tuesday between the second-seeded Saints and No. 11 Rams at Montville High School was penalty kicks and unfortunately for the Saints, Neas stood between them and a championship game.

The Old Saybrook keeper watched as Ali Patterson’s shot went wide and then made another save on a shot by Gretchen Greene while her teammates recorded three straight successful kicks to win the best-of-five shootout and advance to their first ever state title match.

Disappointment

“I’m disappointed in ourselves,” St. Bernard coach Chris Ghiglia said. “We should have been more fluid in the attacking third.”

Old Saybrook (12-5-2) made no bones about it: The Rams were going to play a defensive-oriented match. Bright said he knew about the talents of Regan, who scored 19 goals this season, and Talia Coleman, who finished with 20.

“My thought was we had to mark those players and have someone behind them so if (the first defender) was beaten, we had someone to back them up,” Bright said.

Offensively, Bright was hoping to catch a break and get an opportunity to score. That didn’t happen as the Saints dominated, taking 18 shots to the Rams two, but were unable to convert because of Neas.

“I like the pressure I guess, I just love making saves in front of the fans,” Neas said. “It was a team effort, I wouldn’t be here without my team helping me and I help them.”

The best opportunity for St. Bernard (16-5) came late in the first half when Regan got away from the defense for a one-on-one with Neas. The Old Saybrook keeper made the initial save, but couldn’t cover up and the ball popped loose. Regan was able to get her foot on it, but some how, Neas recovered and stuffed that shot as well.

“In the beginning of the season, I didn’t get up fast, so I’ve been constantly training, down, up, down, up,” Neas said.

It was two of the University of New Hampshire-bound senior’s 10 saves in regulation.

Lost opportunities

“My heart broke when I didn’t make either of those because those were my opportunities,” Regan said.

Ghiglia said he expected the Rams to sit back in a defensive posture as they had in a win over Coginchaug in the quarterfinals.

“We talked about going to the back post, we went near post. They were leaving five and six players back at all times, We knew we had to get around them out wide and instead, played though the middle. We just didn’t execute what we really wanted to do unfortunately,” Ghiglia said.

The Saints had high hopes to make a state final with nine seniors who had been playing together since their freshman year for the most part.

“We were building toward a run this year and we achieved a lot of great things and we’re not going to let a penalty-kick shootout take away from three months of work,” Ghiglia said. “We’re disappointed, though. We really wanted to play on Saturday (in the state championship).”